rotting like a wreck on the ocean floor
by Pencilwalla
Summary: nasch duels yuuma with everything he has. and then he runs out. sharkbait.


His disk snapped in half from the force of the next blow, and Nasch had to snatch up the broken piece, set cards and all, before the shockwave carried it away. The spiderweb of cracks that had been spreading each time Hope struck had shattered, and now he was dueling with half a disk.

It was as pointless as trying to fight with half a sword. Yuuma watched him from across the field, concerned words coming from his lips that Nasch ignored. Instead, he held the broken piece of his disk in place, forcing the jagged edges together, and concentrated.

The armor on his arm deformed, stretching out to touch his disk, and flowed across the crack until it was whole again. It hurt; the gem on his arm shrank, the vital power within it seeping into the disk to hold it together. But it was only his arm. He only needed one functioning arm to draw.

The next two blows exhausted the gem and the armor on that arm, though, and Nasch drew from the shoulder next, trying not to think of how this left him exposed. Hope's attacks were fierce and unrelenting, and the Astral power in each blast was damaging him more and more as the outer layers of stony skin were worn away.

_Just one more turn,_ he thought. He forced himself to bear the pain. _Just one more turn and I'll…_

Seven turns later, his vision was starting to blur. He was down on his knees; he'd used up the leg armor earlier, to reinforce the disk where it attached to the dead weight of his arm. There was the crest in the center of his chest now, and nothing else. The gem pulsed weakly in time to his heart crystal, begging for life-giving radiation to make him whole again.

But there was no going back. The duel was still ongoing, the lives of all his people on the line and on his shoulders (shoulders that were cracked and naked without armor, shoulders from which light was starting to leak). He would have to last. Fluid seeped down his face — there was a deep crater in his forehead from where he'd given up the crown.

He let the crest dissolve. It was so painful that there were stars before his eyes, pain in every part of his body, a pounding in his head that drowned out Yuuma's voice (Yuuma's voice that kept asking if he was alright, as though Yuuma was not the one who had made him cannibalize himself to go on).

But that did not matter. It did not matter if he lived, as long as he won the duel this turn…

…it was hard to see his cards, but they had been his for so long that he managed. Nasch played slowly, aware of his growing weakness, the attack sounding broken coming out of his throat —

— Yuuma's set card flew open in a blaze of Astral light and damage struck through him, the cracks becoming great valleys that let all the starlight in him escape —

—blackness —

"_Shark!_" The scream tore itself free of Yuuma's throat, and he had to cover his eyes as bright red light blinded him and hid Nasch's body from his sight. Hope disappeared, and Astral floated overhead as Yuuma charged across the field.

"You said he'd be okay if I won," Yuuma reminded Astral angrily. He took his disk off as he ran; the field was covered in craters and boulders, the landscape altered terribly form their battle. He had to stop to climb over or around, or risk falling.

Why didn't Nasch say anything?

"Astral?" Yuuma started to ask, but then he saw a purple and red figure lying crumpled on the ground and forgot all about it. Nasch was facedown in the dirt, his duel disk in pieces beside his arm. There was something odd about it, but Yuuma ignored it in favor of the odd black sports on Nasch's arm and back.

Only they weren't spots, they were holes and cracks in his rock-like flesh, and now that Yuuma was paying attention, Nasch looked smaller, somehow. All the armor on his body was gone; the tattered cape was still attached somehow, stuck into the backs of his shoulders.

Yuuma shook Nasch — he was heavy — but there was no response. No movement. And surely a duelist like Nasch wouldn't leave his cards lying on the ground.

"Shark?" He repeated. "Hey, come on…"

There was nothing. Yuuma slid his arms under Nasch's body to flip him over; he lifted up, and pushed and —

"Ah!" Nasch's torso crumbled. His chest had caved in and shed purple dust where Yuuma had touched it, and on his back Yuuma could see that one arm had simply come off. The gems that had dotted his body were missing. And there were cracks in him everywhere, and everywhere Yuuma dared to touch was fragile, and where his eyes should have been there were grotesquely empty sockets.

Yuuma turned around and heaved, nausea roiling in his stomach. He covered his mouth with his hand, trying to contain his disgust and his grief. "Astral, what's going on? What's wrong with him?"

Astral spoke slowly. "He's dead, Yuuma."

"But you said he'd be alright if I won!"

"I lied."

Yuuma flinched backwards like he'd been slapped, nearly falling onto Nasch's still crumbling corpse.

"What?"

"You would never have agreed to duel him otherwise."

"But — but you said —" Yuuma struggled to make sense of what was happening. It was all wrong. It was impossible; wasn't Astral his friend, his partner, his ally? Astral would never lie to him. They were going to make a new fate, together, one where everyone could live.

Weren't they?

"My mission is to destroy the Barian World." Astral said calmly, as if they were just talking about — about anything, but how he had just tricked Yuuma into murdering his friend. "With Nasch dead, it will be simple to defeat the rest of the lords and wipe Chaos from the universe."

"No," Yuuma burst out. "No! I won't duel with you anymore then!"

"Now that Nasch has been defeated, I no longer need you." Astral replied.

"But you don't even have a deck," Yuuma said. He clutched at his cards protectively, thinking of Hope in his extra deck, praying for his ace's protection. But nothing happened, nothing but Astral's hand filled with cold blue light reaching out to touch Yuuma's chest.

"I have yours," Astral said, and then his fingers were ice cold in Yuuma's body, wrapped around his frenzied and broken heart, and he couldn't breathe as the cold paralyzed him. Something terrible was happening to him…something…

Yuuma strained for breath, but nothing came, nothing but despair as black spots flashed in front of his eyes, as behind him there was the crack of Nasch's body falling apart. Astral's hand was squeezing down —


End file.
